Atmanirbhar Bharat: Bengaluru company designs chip for civilian, military use

New Delhi: An Indian-designed NavIC chip with potential in both the civilian and defence sectors has been introduced by a Bengaluru-based space technology business. It can utilise India’s own navigation satellite system to deliver location services. The 12-nanometer chip may be inserted into any handheld device, including mobile phones, and it can receive signals from the US Global Positioning System, the Russian GLONASS constellation, and the Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC) or Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS). The chip, created by Elena Geo Systems, an IIT-Kharagpur spinoff, was delivered to Gen. Anil Chauhan, chief of the defence staff, on Thursday. Also present were Samir V. Kamat, chairman of the DRDO, and Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari, chief of the air staff. To guarantee a consistent supply of the NavIC chip, Elena Geo Systems has a contract with a chip manufacturer in Taiwan. “We directly control the factory. Everything has been given to them and we can manufacture any number of chips. We have received the first lot of 10,000 chips. More are to be delivered shortly,” Lt Col VS Velan, founder and chief technology officer of Elena Geo Systems told PTI on the sidelines of the Indian DefSpace Symposium organised by the Indian Space Association. The NavIC chip is appropriate for usage in mobiles, handheld devices, and wearables with applications ranging from tracking school buses to armament systems thanks to its small size, ultra-low power requirement, and software-based control. He claimed that the processor will provide India a significant advantage because both the public and business sectors may reduce their reliance on the American Global Positioning System (GPS). The multi-frequency and multi-constellation chip/processor, created especially for NavIC, is small and simple to integrate into any GNSS circuit and offers the user continuous coverage and high-accuracy reception. According to Velan, Elena’s chip complies with the specifications established by the Indian Space Research Agency for IRNSS/NavIC signal reception because it is based on a unique algorithm designed for use throughout India and surrounding regions/countries. Also, a wide range of operational logistics applications for ships, submarines, radars, drones, artillery systems, and weapons platforms can make use of the military-grade chip. “The chip has many cores that service the requirements of signal acquisition, regeneration, processing and the output interface and hence it has been named the NavIC processor. This will enable high precision and accuracy for all the three types of application applications such as navigation, positioning and timing, providing India much needed Atma Nirbharata in this domain,” Velan said. Read all the Latest News, Trending News,  Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.